Abstract
Integrating formal methods enhances their power as an intellectual tool in modelling and design. This holds regardless of automation, but a fortiori if software tools are conceived in an integrated framework.
Among the many approaches to integration, most valuable are those with the widest potential impact and least obsolescence or dependency on technology or particular tool-oriented paradigms. From a practical view, integration by unifying models leads to more uniform, wider-spectrum, yet simpler language design in automated tools for formal methods.
Hence this paper shows abstractions that cut across levels and boundaries between disciplines, help unifying the growing diversity of aspects now covered by separate formal methods and mathematical models, and even bridge the gap between “continuous” and “discrete” systems. The abstractions also yield conceptual simplification by hiding non-essential differences, avoiding repeating the same theory in different guises.
The underlying framework, not being the main topic, is outlined quite tersely, but enough for showing the preferred formalism to express and reason about the abstract paradigms of interest. Three such paradigms are presented in sufficient detail to appreciate the surprisingly wide scope of the obtained unification. The function extension paradigm is useful from signal processing to functional predicate calculus. The function tolerance paradigm spans the spectrum from analog filters to record types, relational databases and XML semantics. The coordinate space paradigm covers modelling issues ranging from transmission lines to formal semantics, stochatic processes and temporal calculi. One conclusion is that integrated formal methods are best served by calculational tools.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aarts, C., Backhouse, R., Hoogendijk, P., Voermans, E., van der Woude, J.: A relational theory of data types. Report. Eindhoven University, Edinhoven (1992)
Abrial, J.-R.: B-Book. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1996)
Alur, R., Sontag, E.D., Henzinger, T.A. (eds.): HS 1995. LNCS, vol. 1066. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)
Barendregt, H.P.: The Lambda Calculus—Its Syntax and Semantics, North- Holland (1984)
Bass, H.: The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate: the Case of Mathematics. Notices of the AMS 50(7), 767–776 (2003)
Bishop, R.H.: Learning with LabVIEW. Addison-Wesley Longman, Amsterdam (1999)
Blahut, R.E.: Theory and Practice of Error Control Codes. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1984)
Boute, R.T.: On the requirements for dynamic software modification. In: van Spronsen, C.J., Richter, L. (eds.) MICROSYSTEMS: Architecture, Integratio and Use (Euromicro Symposium 1982), North Holland, pp. 259–271 (1982)
Boute, R.T.: A calculus for reasoning about temporal phenomena. In: Proc. NGI-SION Symposium 4, pp. 405–411 (April 1986)
Boute, R.T.: System semantics and formal circuit description. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems CAS-33(12), 1219–1231 (1986)
Boute, R.T.: Systems Semantics: Principles, Applications and Implementation. ACM TOPLAS 10(1), 118–155 (1988)
Boute, R.T.: Fundamentals of Hardware Description Languages and Declarative Languages. In: Mermet, J.P. (ed.) Fundamentals and Standards in Hardware Description Languages, pp. 3–38. Kluwer, Dordrecht (1993)
Boute, R.T.: Funmath illustrated: A Declarative Formalism and Application Examples. Computing Science Institute, University of Nijmegen (July 1993)
Boute, R.T.: Supertotal Function Definition in Mathematics and Software Engineering. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 26(7), 662–672 (2000)
Boute, R.T.: Functional Mathematics: a Unifying Declarative and Calculational Approach to Systems, Circuits and Programs — Part I: Basic Mathematics. Course text, Ghent University (2002)
Boute, R.T.: Concrete Generic Functionals: Principles, Design and Applications. In: Gibbons, J., Jeuring, J. (eds.) Generic Programming, pp. 89–119. Kluwer, Dordrecht (2003)
Boute, R., Verlinde, H.: Functionals for the Semantic Specification of Temporal Formulas for Model Checking. In: König, H., Heiner, M., Wolisz, A. (eds.) FORTE 2003 Work-in-Progress Papers. BTU Cottbus Computer Science Reports, pp. 23–28 (2003)
Bracewell, R.N.: The Fourier Transform and Its Applications, 2nd edn. McGraw-Hill, New York (1978)
Carson, R.S.: Radio Communications Concepts: Analog. Wiley, Chichester (1990)
Clarke, E.M., Gromberg, O., Peled, D.: Model Checking. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)
Dijkstra, E.W., Scholten, C.S.: Predicate Calculus and Program Semantics. Springer, Heidelberg (1990)
Dwyer, M.B., Hatcliff, J.: Bandera Temporal Specification Patterns. In: Tutorial presentation at ETAPS 2002 (Grenoble) and SFM 2002, Bertinoro (2002), http://www.cis.ksu.edu/santos/bandera/Talks/SFM02/02-SFM-Patterns.ppt
Franklin, G.F., David Powell, J., Emami-Naeini, A.: Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1986)
Gries, D.: Improving the curriculum through the teaching of calculation and discrimination. Communications of the ACM 34 3, 45–55 (1991)
Gries, D., Schneider, F.B.: A Logical Approach to Discrete Math. Springer, Heidelberg (1993)
Gries, D.: The need for education in useful formal logic. IEEE Computer 29 4, 29–30 (1996)
Gries, D.: Foundations for Calculational Logic. In: Broy, M., Schieder, B. (eds.) Mathematical Methods in Program Development. NATO ASI Series F, vol. 158, pp. 83–126. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)
Grossman, R.L., Nerode, A., Ravn, A.P., Rischel, H. (eds.): HS 1991 and HS 1992. LNCS, vol. 736. Springer, Heidelberg (1993)
Hanna, K., Daeche, N., Howells, G.: Implementation of the Veritas design logic. In: Stavridou, V., Melham, T.F., Boute, R.T. (eds.) Theorem Provers in Circuit Design, North Holland, pp. 77–84 (1992)
Hehner, E.C.R.: From Boolean Algebra to Unified Algebra. Internal Report, University of Toronto (June 1997) (revised 2003)
Hoare, C.A.R., Jifeng, H.: Unifying Theories of Programming. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1998)
Holzmann, G.: The SPIN Model Checker: Primer and Reference Manual. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2003)
Hudak, P., Peterson, J., Fasel, J.H.: A Gentle Introduction to Haskell 98 (October 1999), http://www.haskell.org/tutorial/
Jensen, K., Wirth, N.: PASCAL User Manual and Report. Springer, Heidelberg (1978)
Lamport, L.: Specifying Systems. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2002)
Lee, E.A., Messerschmitt, D.G.: Digital Communication, 2nd edn. Kluwer, Dordrecht (1994)
Manna, Z., Pnueli, A.: The Temporal Logic of Reactive and Concurrent Systems — Specification. Springer, Heidelberg (1992)
Manolios, P., Strother Moore, J.: On the desirability of mechanizing calculational proofs. Information Processing Letters 77(2-4), 173–179 (2001)
Meyer, B.: Introduction to the Theory of Programming Languages. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1991)
Owre, S., Rushby, J., Shankar, N.: PVS: prototype verification system. In: Kapur, D. (ed.) CADE 1992. LNCS, vol. 607, pp. 748–752. Springer, Heidelberg (1992)
Papoulis, A.: Probability, Random Variables and Atochastic Processes. McGraw-Hill, New York (1965)
Paulson, L.C.: Introduction to Isabelle. Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge (Febraury 2001), http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/dist/docs.html
Parzen, E.: Modern Probability Theory and Its Applications. Wiley, Chichester (1960)
Vaandrager, F.W., van Schuppen, J.H. (eds.): HSCC 1999. LNCS, vol. 1569. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
Vardi, M.Y., Wolper, P.: An automata-theoretic approach to automatic program verification. In: Proc. Symp. on Logic in Computer Science, June 1986, pp. 322–331 (1986)
Verlinde, H.: Systematisch ontwerp van XML-hulpmiddelen in een functionele taal. M.Sc. Thesis, Ghent University (2003)
Wigner, E.: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Comm. Pure and Appl. Math. 13(I), 1–14 (1960), http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March02/Wigner/Wigner.html
Winskel, G.: The Formal Semantics of Programming Languages: An Introduction. MIT Press, Cambridge (1993)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Boute, R. (2004). Integrating Formal Methods by Unifying Abstractions. In: Boiten, E.A., Derrick, J., Smith, G. (eds) Integrated Formal Methods. IFM 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2999. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24756-2_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24756-2_24
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-21377-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24756-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive